Step in Life that count
by Speedygal
Summary: Takes place 9 months after the events of Step into Asgard. Short story. Joy deals with the loss of someone she had known, with the unlikeliest of all people coming to her side. [Loki fanfic] Started and completed 1.15.2015. Short story; because it is one chapter.


Joy, the one who was there for others and comforted them in their time of sadness. Now she is the one who needed exactly others on Asgard; she is known as Farah with a unusually light Russian accent and five hundred years had grown into quite the woman that was more full of puzzles, mystery, and a sense of making rather useful still has some of the qualities that Loki did really like about her. Joy is quite different from the Joy that Loki had grown to known over a couple months in Midgard.

Loki's disguise of Odin went down, shortly after he enters Joy's room.

"Joy?" Loki calls, with the doors closed behind him.

Loki could hear the most familiar sound; grieving. More like crying. He could recognize the light Russian accent in-between the cries. The voice definitely did belong to the new Joy. Loki had not seen Joy cry; in ages. It felt like a complete decade had passed when really it had not.A complete decade since Loki had seen and heard Joy's cries.

He walks towards the source of the weeping.

"You could've lived longer, Jim." Was one of the phrases Loki heard from Joy. "Why?" She looks up towards the cieling with her eyes being bright as day that it made the blue in her hazel eyes stand out and the corners of her eyes are red. She turns her head towards Loki. "Oh."She blinks away the tears while shaking. "Loki,I didn't h-hear you come in."

"I never heard you knew of a man by the name 'Jim'." Loki said.

"That's...that's because he was a bus driver." Joy said, as some more tears came down. "He was so old." She grabs a kleenex and blows her nose. "He just died..." Joy drops the kleenex into a box right beside her. "You...you usualy don't come into my room unexpected unless..." She raises one of her eyebrows. "You knew."

Loki shook his hand.

"None of that." Loki lied.

Loki had only came because there was word that Farah has a love wanted to meet the Asgardian, who Joy had probably found as a another interesting person and could possibly keep the secret going that the Midgardian had not died on Midgard under the circumstances of Russian Missiles and her choice.

"You knew that I don't run off crying from the Bifrost." Joy said, instead of what Loki had expected.

"Oh, so you have been sharing visits to Midgard." Loki said.

"Well, not really." Joy said, wiping off a tear with her fingers. "I've been doing background research around these other inhabitant realm dwellers." Loki tilts his head. "They are hunchback creatures,ridiculous sharp jaws, blades that only could be made in kingdom times, and they are the worse thieves since...since...Pirates!"

Joy is not exaggerating.

She is telling the truth, completely.

"I...I may have asked Heimdall to tell me if..." Joy's voice becomes lower and she lowers her gaze towards her fingers with a sad sulk. "If something happened to some people I care about." She rubs the side of her shoulder. "I didn't expect he would go...he seemed like...He was so-"

"Healthy." Loki said, making the chair become a bench that sent the box to Joy's side. Loki sat beside Joy.

Joy nods.

"The last thing I told Jim was; see you tomorrow." Joy said, sadly.

"It has been 9 months since you left Midgard." Loki said. "You could not have known."

"I know." Joy said, in a low voice. "When people say time flies; it really does." She looks up towards Loki. "How did you get through it the first time around?"

"What?" Loki asks.

"The first time you lost your first Midgardian 'associate'." Joy said.

"Hard." Loki said. "I learned over the centuries that most Midgardians were like stars." The look on Joy's face seemed to have a 'not helping' kind of one. "But you, you, of all Midgardians was different. Not because of some...certain strings." Loki made a violet appear in his hand within a sparkly green ball and smelled it. "And your lack of smell."

"I...can smell." Joy protests.

Loki's eyebrows danced up and down.

"That was because I fixed it." Loki said.

"Now about your first Midgardian friend." Joy said.

"I was a child, and so was he." Loki said.

Joy's face grew a comforted kind of look.

"Good to hear the one who wears a mask actually has feelings." Joy said. "No, I didn't mean the one you're thinking of,Lokes."

"It has been a long time since you called me Lokes." Loki said.

"I never did." Joy said.

Loki smiles at that reply.

"Rumors say you're dating." Loki said.

"Uh, I am not dating." Joy said with a fake smile.

"Joy; you are smiling." Loki said, making the violet disappear.

"So?" Joy asks.

"You're lying to me, Joy. " Loki said. "You smile every time you lie."

Her fake smile went away.

"He is just a friend." Joy said.

"Uh huh." Loki said, not convinced as he made a fake nod. "Last time you had 'a friend' on a 'dating rumor' bubble." Loki puts his hand together in a cup shape. "You ended up getting possessed."

"Did not!" Joy protests. "I haven't dated since that jackaft Russel."

"Right." Loki said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "You didn't do that." He takes his hand off the bridge of his nose. "What I mean to say; the last time you dated, is when you were..." Loki waves his hand in mid-air. "Under the influence."

"Fibber." Joy flat out said.

"I am not lying." Loki lied.

"That's a fib." Joy said. "I would never be under the influence, I did not drink and if I did as...in the other version; I probably wouldn't drink since it damages my liver." She sticks her tongue out. "Two points for Hufflepuff."

"I am trying to say; are you sure he's just a friend or he is going out of his way to make it seem you two are an item?"

Joy's eyes are big.

"Excuse me." Joy said.

"An item." Loki repeats.

"I know when I can trust people, Lokes." Joy said. "I think I can trust him..." She pauses then makes a questionable look. "Did you come here to ask him about him?"

"No." Loki lied. "Like you said; you fled from the Bifrost crying."

"...And how did you really get past your first loss?" Joy asks.

"He told me, 'There are some steps in life that count, and, we better not dwell on the past and learn the mistakes then carry on.' on some of our childhood adventures." Loki said, sounding fond. "It was before my teacher Mar came in." He made a small lake appear across from them then he skipped a pebble across the water. "Some of those steps in life count. We have to move on before the previous steps destroy us."

Loki looks over to his side.

"And that Thor was determined to get Babe the ox a harness." Loki said, shaking his head with an irritated sigh. "It was a living nightmare."

"Paul...Paul Bunyan is real." Joy said, gasping.

"I never met him." Loki lied. "If he were alive then he would be dead by now."

Joy, out of the blue quite really, hugs Loki.

She hadn't hugged Loki at all really in the time that he has known her. She breaks the short lived and warm hug.

"Thank you." Joy said, getting up. "I really needed to hear that, Lokes."

But that wouldn't waver the concern Loki had about this Asgardian.

"And who is this Asgardian?" Loki asks.

"Elena Tawndittor." Joy said.

"...I was not aware you had interest in woman that greatly." Loki remarks.

"I was joking." Joy said, with a light laugh. "His name is Shepard Thawnson." She heard footsteps coming through the door. "Chair become a plant!"

Loki became a plant in a pot on the bench, and then, he saw Shepard walk in. He was not stereotypical as Loki had thought he would be; minus the 'I am taller than you, Farah', 'X' scar on his chin, and his two eyes that did not share the same eye color. He seemed to be of African American heritage. The Conversation they shared was different. And for being the god of lies himself; Loki could tell that Shepard is lying to Joy about everything.

Joy believed Shepard.

Loki genuinely did care about Joy.

But this Asgardian didn't seem right for Joy; he had malicious intentions.

* * *

><p><em>AN Dedicated to Jim Swanson, a great Bus Driver. _

_He was mentioned vaguely in Step into Asgard as 'The Bus Driver'. _

_Left this world to a better realm: 1.15.2015._


End file.
